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Description:
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Urban Search and Rescue (USAR ) involves having to enter and explore partially collapsed buildings in search for victims trapped by the collapse . There are many hazards in doing this , because of the possibility of additional collapses , explosions , fires , or flooding of the area being searched . The use of robots for USAR would increase the safety of the operation for the humans involved , and make the operation faster , because the robots could penetrate areas inaccessible to human beings . Teleoperated robots have been deployed in USAR situations to explore confined spaces in the collapsed buildings and send back images of the interior to rescuers . These deployments have resulted in the identification of several problems found during the operation of these robots . This thesis addresses a problem that has been encountered repeatedly in these robots : the determination of the scale of unrecognizable objects in the camera views from the robot . A procedure that would allow the extraction of size using a laser pointer mounted on the robot's camera is described , and an experimental setup and results that verify this procedure have been shown . Finally , ways to extend the procedure have been explored |